With a long-term vision for commercial aviation, Naresh Goyal’s Jet Airways is adopting a multi-pronged strategy to secure its future.

With a long-term vision for commercial aviation, Naresh Goyal’s Jet Airways is adopting a multi-pronged strategy to secure its future.

The airline is entering into long-term contracts with service providers, picking up equity in aircraft maintenance ventures, relentlessly cutting costs, leasing out surplus planes and flying to lucrative virgin routes to enhance profitability.

The objective is to overcome short-term hiccups and emerge as one of the top five airlines of the world.

The airline last week signed a $750 million (Rs 3,450 crore) deal with ST Aerospace of Singapore for maintenance of 143 CFM 56-7B engines that power Jet and JetLite’s Boeing 737 fleet.

This 10-year contract enables Jet to avail of a high standard of maintenance with longer engine life. ST Aerospace would also open an Engine Hospital Shop at Jet’s hangar at Mumbai to provide instant support.

Recently, Jet signed an MoU with MAS GMR Aerospace Engineering Company based in Hyderabad to avail of heavy eminence service of its 100 planes for 10 years. This deal will enable Jet to save on cost and reduce downtime for each aircraft.

It has also leased out seven Boeing 777-300 ER wide body planes. Three have been dry leased to Thai Airways and four others to Turkish Airlines.

“Jet has worked with a focus over the last two years to closely align the deployed capacity with demand, streamlining costs in the process. Leasing of three B777-300ER aircraft is among the last steps to fully achieving this objective,” Nikos Kardassis, CEO, Jet Airways said.